


The path from death to life and vice versa

by Ruta



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock wakes up three times and as many falls asleep before she goes to see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The path from death to life and vice versa

 

Sherlock wakes up three times and as many falls asleep before she goes to see him.

Numbed from the anesthetic, it takes longer than necessary to recognize the surrounding environment. A hospital room. Generically white, adequately cleaned, rigorously impersonal.

Beyond the lowered blinds of the window, it’s night. Cold, confirms Molly’s pale skin, reddened where the north wind has bitten her - her cheeks and the tip of the nose and ears.

Molly is sitting stiffly on the uncomfortable plastic chair. Her arms are tight around the bust, holding the bag on her lap. She doesn’t sleep, even if the eyelids are closed. The eyelashes are trembling, are wet with fresh tears. The shoulders don’t flinch, but they must have done it.

Sherlock decides to ignore the evidence of what he is observing.

She must have just completed hers shift. She hasn’t returned to her apartment. She hasn’t had way to take a shower or change clothes.

Molly still smells of formaldehyde, as well as the surface odor of lemon soap that she uses to cover it. To below, there is hers fragrance, peculiar and exclusive. Something that combines a few of his favorite flavors.

 _Coffee_. What she drank as soon before entering.

 _Chemicals_. Those of the fixative that is injected into corpses. Alcohol. Glycerin. Formalin. Carbolic acid. Potassium acetate. Potassium nitrate. Sodium chloride.

 _Lavender_.

"Are you planning to pretend not to notice me for much longer? It’s a practice ineffective. You would not be here if it wasn’t for me, which means that you have already taken note of my presence."

Another minute. No mention, no answer.

Sherlock rolls his eyes that reconnoiter the room and return an instant later on the focal point which is the full-color, slim figure of her. The rest dilates. It forms a negligible boundary of gray and common platitude.

"It's a way like another to give vent to anger?"

Useless question. Sherlock recognizes its bleakness mediocre.

Nonetheless, it would be appreciated that Molly showed at least a minimum of participation. Something that isn’t the slight wrinkling of brows which has followed his words. Instead of the buzz of chatter or even her thoughts swirling - extremely pleasing options to comparison of this - on this occasion Molly opposes the force of her obstinate silence. An ephemeral silence that shouts and screeches, agreed the context.

"Molly Hopper’s strike of silence."

Another snort. Sherlock taps with growing annoyance his fingers against the bars of the bed.

"Molly," calls her impatiently.

Finally, she makes him worthy of a look. And it’s fleeting and troubled as that of an animal trapped and deceived; then acquires thickness, its consistency.

"Shut up, Sherlock," she orders brusque, rising abruptly. It seems that she’s choking; she’s in hyperventilation. "Shut up, okay? Give me a moment. No, don’t do it. Speak much as you like. I prefer it."

Moves up and down the room, agitated, tracing wide circles in the air flow. Her hands are pressed over hers face, but she isn’t crying. It’s an unfortunate and pitiful sight of which, after years of mutual knowledge, he’s able to distinguish the symptoms - manifest themselves infrequently.

"What’s wrong, Molly?”

She turns with an expression frightened and angry at the same time. Molly is never clear in hers feelings. Her feel is a rough sea, agitated and swirl.

"I'm terrified," she says and swallows once, twice, three times. With a broken voice, adds: "You were going to die."

Sherlock raises a corner of mouth into a smile disharmonious, opens his arms theatrically, but his voice is hoarse, he realizes, as he’s aware of the fact that his perceptions are stun and slow. "As you can see I don’t show any of the main abiotic phenomena, including the triad of Bichat. I'm afraid you'll have to defer post-mortem examination. Sure, a ballistic trauma would have been-" Sherlock stops. Blinks, confused. _How and when_ _did it happen? But above, for what sacrosanct reason?_

The fact is that Molly, the unpredictability personified in the figure of unexpected predictability, Molly is now embracing him with the impetus and fury of an old emotion. Hers arms are shaking so much that he considers a miracle that the surgical wound hasn’t already reopened.

Sherlock tried to point out. A thought, formulated in the next instant, restrains him. Her reaction would be granted. She would pull back, let go her hold on him, treating him like skin burned by the fire. Unsure, he brushes her neck with his thumb and forefinger, stroking the soft skin portion between the hairline and the back of the neck in a calm caress, that he has confidence to be reassuring. He doesn’t let escape a verse. Molly would be too quick to misunderstand.

Her nose and mouth, against his collarbone, breath in gently, withheld from her will not to cause him pain.

"I'm not dead."

Really, it's the evening of distressing platitudes.

Molly rubs her forehead against the coat. "I shouldn’t have come," he hears that she whispers. "I'm not myself."

They remain in that position for an incalculable time: Molly stopped at the edge of the bed, her face buried in his shoulder; Sherlock massaging the perceptible vertebrae in hers back arched, breathing in a straight line, from her which emanates them, the whole series of fragrances that he appreciates most.

"It's just for this?" He asks with a subtle, pernicious irritation.

Molly moves away. "Just?"

Sherlock sets her seriously. Now that his hand came back empty and disengaged, it looks like an appendage strange and amorphous against the fabric of the sheets. "You don’t have forgiven me."

Molly doesn’t bother to deny. "You know what drugs mean to me. In addition, you promised," she faces him, sternly. "No, you swore."

"I remember it well."

"It’s not like you to break a promise, otherwise you will not be wasting time to do it. What kind of case are you following?"

_Clever. Really clever_ _._

Sherlock doesn't dispute, doesn’t allege mitigating circumstances.

"It must be a dangerous case," Molly perseveres. "One of which you cannot or don't want to talk about. Or both. And it’s a case for which you got shot."

At the recognizable vein of accusation and concern in her voice, Sherlock reacts with a gesture of annoyance.

Molly doesn’t care. She continued her arguments with head down, pensive. Brilliant in a way that is almost painful to observe for him. "John has only a vague idea, even he was on the spot with you. This proves that besides being a risky case, also indirectly it threatens us, which makes it even more difficult for you. When the safety of your friends is at stake, you become reckless and no, don’t you dare to say otherwise."

He didn’t have the intention.

Molly sighs, runs a hand over her face. Contracts the muscles of the shoulders and bites her lips in the picture that should belong to the doubt. In the end, as if it cost to her some effort and a fair amount of audacity, she leans again towards him.

Sherlock simply stared, without moving.

Molly probes him with a glance accurate, frank. Then delicately, slowly, places a kiss on his forehead.

It’s a warm kiss, which tells a lot of the night outside that soon they will have to deal, separately. Then she gets up, takes the bag from the floor and the colourful scarf from the chair on which she had rested it.

"Are not you going to ask me to abandon the case?"

Molly turns to give him one last glimpse of her inscrutable expression. "Would you?"

She doesn't allow him to respond. She has already left, leaving behind one, ten perfumes and receding echo of what she said.

 _Molly Hooper_ _._ _The transposition of_ _all that is_ _not anodyne_ _._

"When you love someone you do many things that in other circumstances would never dream of doing. The slaps I gave you prove it. Bye,Sherlock. I really hope you recover as soon as possible."

**Author's Note:**

> I read, reread, gate half of the sentences, rewrite.  
> The last scene is emblematic and tributes, I hope at least in small part, to Molly the true extent of what she feels for Sherlock. Molly loves him and admires him for his analytical mind, her intuitive ability, the unusual mathematical intelligence and painstaking. She estimates his work, and despite the concern never would ask him to abandon a case. To be prudent? To pay more attention? To act with caution? Sure. But waive the adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt? It would be like depriving of water a thirsty man, would be to take away the blood from his veins. It would be like asking to Sherlock not to be Sherlock.  
> Molly knows this and would never dream of doing so. One thing it’s to be angry about the lack of care that he has of himself, and another it’s to scold him for his willingness to do something dangerous and potentially fatal. The first concerns his health, the second doesn’t depend only on him. It’s his work and his job involves having to deal with complex subjects.  
> Kisses to everyone!


End file.
